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National NewsConservative News
Political Bridge to Nowhere
By Gary Palmer
Posted on: November 15, 2005
Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson got it exactly right in regard to Democrats and Republicans. According to Samuelson, when it comes to the federal budget, "…most Republicans are phonies. So are most Democrats."
In the last five years the so-called "conservative" Republican majority in Congress has been anything but conservative when it comes to spending. Since 2001, the Republican lead Congress has raised federal spending by 33 percent from over $1.8 trillion to $2.5 trillion. In the process pork spending has reached the point that many of the beneficiaries of the "conservative" Republicans largess are embarrassed.
The most egregious example of this spending spree is the recently passed $286 billion federal highway bill that contained over 6,300… that is six thousand, three hundred…earmarks.
To put this in context with previous pork spending on transportation bills, the 1991 federal highway bill had 538 earmarks. This was just three years before the Republicans took control of both houses of Congress. In 1998, under the "conservative" Republican Congress, the earmarks in the "Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century," or TEA-21, jumped to 1,850. Since 1991, the Republicans have increased federal highway funding earmarks by over 1,170 percent.
Among the pork projects in the 2005 bill is funding for a program to combat adolescent obesity. There is also funding for a Blue Ridge Music Center, for constructing horse riding trails and associated facilities, for flower gardens, replica sailing ships, bus museums, and a magnetic-levitation demonstration.
But the one pork project that has gotten the most attention is the "Bridge to Nowhere," the bridge in Alaska that will connect the town of Ketchikan (population 8,900) with its airport on the Island of Gravina (population 50) at a cost to federal taxpayers that will eventually add up to $320 million. This bridge will replace an automobile ferry that now takes 15 to 30 minutes.
The "Bridge to Nowhere" has come to represent the intense frustration that many conservatives across the nation feel toward the Republicans. Serious conservatives in Congress such as Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, along with Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana and Rep. Jeff Flake of Arizona in the House, have been leading the effort to reduce federal spending.
Sen. Coburn attempted to pass an amendment that would have redirected the funding for the "Bridge to Nowhere" toward paying for reconstruction and repair of the Gulf Coast areas ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. But only seven fellow conservative senators voted with him. Instead, the Republicans in the Senate passed an amendment that will save a minuscule $35 billion from the federal budget spread out over five years.
On the House side, conservative House members sought to reduce the growth in the federal budget by $54 billion over the next five years. This is not a $54 billion cut in spending; it is a reduction in the growth of spending that represents a reduction of only one-half of one percent. That is a reduction of only one nickel out of every $10 of increased spending. Yet the Republican leadership let a handful of moderate Republicans block the bill.
Federal revenues increased by almost $270 billion dollars in the last fiscal year primarily because of the 2003 tax cuts. Unfortunately, liberal and moderate Republicans in the Senate are now using the deficits as cover for their refusal to support making the tax cuts permanent. Sen. Olympia Snowe, one the two liberal senators from Maine, helped kill an effort to extend the 15 percent tax rate on dividends and capital gains by just one more year because of her concerns about the deficit.
To make the political situation even worse, the liberal Republicans in both the House and Senate have stymied the Republican leadership's efforts to meet the nation's energy needs by allowing oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and expanding offshore drilling for oil and natural gas. Yet some of these same members are demanding a billion dollar subsidy for heating oil for the residents of Northeastern states.
If the last few weeks are any indication, the Republican leaders in the House and Senate will roll over for them.
With each passing day the Republicans are looking more and more like losers. They have all but abandoned the principles they embraced that led voters to put them in the majority in the first place. Republicans have badly underestimated the anger and frustration that is festering among their conservative base.
Many Republican politicos smugly assume that the conservative base will vote for them anyway because they have nowhere else to go. But growing numbers of conservatives are coming to the conclusion that it may be better to let the Republicans go back into the minority for two or three terms if that is what it takes to restore principled conservatives to Congress.
So going nowhere with their financial contributions, their grassroots influence and their votes is becoming a legitimate choice for many conservatives. After the 2006 election, this political "Bridge to Nowhere" may leave many Republican members with no where else to go but back home.
What Conservative Party?, November 13, 2005.
Higher Revenues Bring Little Reason to Celebrate, October 18, 2005.
Republican Behavior Like Alien Invasion, October 6, 2005.
Higher Taxes Without Greater Accountability, April 19, 2005.
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